"I want nothing," she declared. "It is time that I went." She
caught a swift and curious interchange of glances between Jeanne
Leclerc and Espinosa, but she was in no mood to seek an
interpretation. There could be no doubt that the coffee set before
her had had some drug slipped into it by Espinosa when he fetched it
from the buffet to the little table at which they sat; a drug which
would have half stupefied her and made her easy to manage. But she
was not to be persuaded, and she rose to her feet.
"I shall get my cloak," she said, and she fetched it, leaving her two
companions together. She did not return to the buffet.
On the far side of the big central hall a long corridor stretched
out. At the mouth of the corridor, guarding it, stood Michel Le Vay.
He made a sign to her, and when she joined him:
"Turn down to the right into the wing," he said in a low voice. "The
small library is in front of you."
Ann slipped past him. She turned into a wing of the house which was
quite deserted and silent. At the end of it a shut door confronted
her. She opened it softly. It was all dark within. But enough
light entered from the corridor to show her the high bookcases ranged
against the walls, the position of the furniture, and some dark,
heavy curtains at the end. She was the first, then, to come to the
tryst. She closed the door behind her and moved slowly and
cautiously forwards with her hands outstretched, until she felt the
curtains yield. She passed in between them into the recess of a
great bow window opening on to the park; and a sound, a strange,
creaking sound, brought her heart into her mouth.
Some one was already in the room, then. Somebody had been quietly
watching as she came in from the lighted corridor. The sound grew
louder. Ann peered between the curtains, holding them apart with
shaking hands, and through that chink from behind her a vague
twilight flowed into the room. In the far corner, near to the door,
high up on a tall bookcase, something was clinging--something was
climbing down. Whoever it was, had been hiding behind the ornamental
top of the heavy mahogany book-case; was now using the shelves like
the rungs of a ladder.
Ann was seized with a panic. A sob broke from her throat. She ran
for the door. But she was too late. A black figure dropped from the
book-case to the ground and, as Ann reached out her hands to the
door, a scarf was whipped about her mouth, stifling her cry. She was
jerked back into the room, but her fingers had touched the light
switch by the door, and as she stumbled and fell, the room was
lighted up. Her assailant fell upon her, driving the breath out of
her lungs, and knotted the scarf tightly at the back of her head.
Ann tried to lift herself, and recognised with a gasp of amazement
that the assailant who pinned her down by the weight of her body and
the thrust of her knees was Francine Rollard. Her panic gave place
to anger and a burning humiliation. She fought with all the strength
of her supple body. But the scarf about her mouth stifled and
weakened her, and with a growing dismay she understood that she was
no match for the hardy peasant girl. She was the taller of the two,
but her height did not avail her; she was like a child matched with a
wildcat. Francine's hands were made of steel. She snatched Ann's
arms behind her back and bound her wrists, as she lay face downwards,
her bosom labouring, her heart racing so that she felt that it must
burst. Then, as Ann gave up the contest, she turned and tied her by
the ankles.
Francine was upon her feet again in a flash. She ran to the door,
opened it a little way and beckoned. Then she dragged her prisoner
up on to a couch, and Jeanne Leclerc and Espinosa slipped into the
room.
"It's done?" said Espinosa.
Francine laughed.
"Ah, but she fought, the pretty baby! You should have given her the
coffee. Then she would have walked with us. Now she must be
carried. She's wicked, I can tell you."
Jeanne Leclerc twisted a lace scarf about the girl's face to hide the
gag over her mouth, and, while Francine held her up, set her white
cloak about her shoulders and fastened it in front. Espinosa then
turned out the light and drew back the curtains.
The room was at the back of the house. In the front of the window
the park stretched away. But it was the park of a French château,
where the cattle feed up to the windows, and only a strip about the
front terrace is devoted to pleasure-gardens and fine lawns.
Espinosa looked out upon meadow-land thickly studded with trees, and
cows dimly moving in the dusk of the summer night like ghosts. He
opened the window, and the throb of the music from the ball-room came
faintly to their ears.
"We must be quick," said Espinosa.
He lifted the helpless girl in his arms and passed out into the park.
They left the window open behind them, and between them they carried
their prisoner across the grass, keeping where it was possible in the
gloom of the trees, and aiming for a point in the drive where a
motorcar waited half-way between the house and the gates. A blur of
light from the terrace and ornamental grounds in front of it became
visible away upon their left, but here all was dark. Once or twice
they stopped and set Ann upon her feet, and held her so, while they
rested.
"A few more yards," Espinosa whispered and, stifling an oath, he
stopped again. They were on the edge of the drive now, and just
ahead of him he saw the glimmer of a white dress and close to it the
glow of a cigarette. Swiftly he put Ann down again and propped her
against a tree. Jeanne Leclerc stood in front of her and, as the
truants from the ball-room approached, she began to talk to Ann,
nodding her head like one engrossed in a lively story. Espinosa's
heart stood still as he heard the man say:
"Why, there are some others here! That is curious. Shall we see?"
But even as he moved across the drive, the girl in the white dress
caught him by the arm.
"That would not be very tactful," she said with a laugh. "Let us do
as we would be done by," and the couple sauntered past.
Espinosa waited until they had disappeared. "Quick! Let us go!" he
whispered in a shaking voice.
A few yards farther on they found Espinosa's closed car hidden in a
little alley which led from the main drive. They placed Ann in the
car. Jeanne Leclerc got in beside her, and Espinosa took the wheel.
As they took the road to the Val Terzon a distant clock struck
eleven. Within the car Jeanne Leclerc removed the gag from Ann
Upcott's mouth, drew the sack over her and fastened it underneath her
feet. At the branch road young Espinosa was waiting with his
motor-cycle and side-car.
"I can add a few words to that story, Mademoiselle," said Hanaud when
she had ended. "First, Michel Le Vay went later into the library,
and bolted the window again, believing you to be well upon your way
to Paris. Second, Espinosa and Jeanne Leclerc were taken as they
returned to Madame Le Vay's ball."